BLOGGING 101: History of the Blog Part 1

It is quite uncertain the whereabouts of the first “actual” blog.  It would interest you to know that beginning of blogs actually began before its appearance on the internet.  Before the internet’s rise, there was a way for electronic communication, in which people could use AP wire to have “wire chats” or “wire fights” on different topics and issues.  In the 1980s, at the same time, was the development of a radio program called “ham radio” where people could talk back and forth between broadcasters, creating more a conversationalist response off of monologue reports and entries.   Eventually, this form transferred into personal diary logs, called “glogs.”  This suggests where the word “blog” started.

Soon, moving into the 1990s, electronic services including bulletin boards services developed forum styles of recording conversation through internet software.  This “conversation” style then lead to the word “thread,” which is a common word used in the blogging world today.  The specific messages sent from the bulletin boards to start discussion off of topics were in fact called “posts,” another term related to the blogging posts.  Bulletin boards were then adopted for some but not all businesses at the time, to gather feedback on interrelated and situational topics, announcements, and sometimes issues.

Moving from a way bulletins into internet forums, the blog was slowly starting to make its entrance.  Journalists began adapting the forum-like structures into their own personal “weblogs” to continue their writing online from magazines, newspapers, and sometimes universities.  One of the first to incorporate the first online “weblog” or “internet journal” was a student, Justin Hall, from Swarthmore College around 1994.  Some web hosting programs and software began taking on some similar trends.  It was not until three years after Hall’s appearance did “The Misanthropic Bitch” (TMB) begin to coin the word “blog.”  The user would strike many controversial topics online.  Many were shocked and responded to her topics and views.

This then got companies got to thinking about making an online profit through blogs like TMB.  Some of these companies offered personal journals and diaries networks online, like Xanga and OpenJournal in 1998.  It was then around 1999, that LiveJournal, Pitas, and Blogger began to appear.  The popularity of Blogger itself didn’t rise until years later.

The origins of the blog are definitely hard to pin point.  As we can see, we understand its roots through other common electronic devices like AP wire and “ham” radio.  It is positive that today, blogging is seen much differently than it has in the beginning.  Almost everyone has one now, from companies to next person in line, blogs are becoming quite trendy and useful to our everyday society.